Dogs, Trains and a Famous Sign

After our early morning wanderings around the remnants of the unfinished Reactor 5 and the associated cooling tower, we continued our journey going back towards Pripyat. When heading from the cooling tower we walked along a disused railway track and were greeted by a pack of wild dogs. They continued to follow us around for the next couple of hours.

Fish Farm / Radiological Laboratory

Originally constructed as a fish farm, it still contains some remnants from the time including tanks that would have been used to hatch the fish prior to releasing them into the cooling lakes adjacent Following the disaster the facility was taken over and reused as a radiological laboratory to try to understand the affects the disaster had on the natural environment as well as the local wildlife.

Behind the facility stands a monument to those who died in the Great Patriotic War and a Zil fire engine.

Welcome to Pripyat

Obviously no trip to the zone would be complete without stopping off at the Pripyat sign.

Yanov Railway Station

To the south of Pripyat is Yanov Railway Station, named after a former village that once stood nearby. It was constructed in 1925 as an isolated railway station, 40 years later it would become very important during the construction of the city of Pripyat as well as the Power Plant itself.

It was the main station serving Pripyat for both freight and passenger services, a road network was constructed to allow both to be easily distributed to the city and power plant.

Although this section of train line is now abandoned, just up the line trains continue to run carrying the thousands of personnel who continue to work at the plant from Slavutych, the city built to replace Pripyat.

Located near to the station there are dozens of abandoned vehicles, many were involved in the clean up following the disaster and were obviously irreversibly contaminated. Within the undergrowth there is train, some carriages remain upright whilst others have toppled over.

At this point we were nearing the end of our Chernobyl adventure, there was just an afternoon left before we needed to head back to Kiev.